| Release date: 26 September 2019 (USA) Genre: Comedy, crime, drama IMDb rating: 7.9 Director: Rian Johnson Cast: Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield |
After earning the ire of millions of Star Wars fans for ‘The Last Jedi’ Rian Johnson went on to make an old school whodunnit with plenty of famous actors. And might I say – no one predicted how awesome it would turn out to be!
‘Knives Out’ is Rian Johnson’s sixth directorial venture but I virtually knew nothing about him before the whole Star Wars debacle (in which I’ll always support Rian). After all that unnecessary attention, doing a new film must’ve been daunting.
But when you have a superb story paired with some of the best actors, you can’t go wrong.
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The film tells the mystery behind the death of a famous murder novel writer Harlan Thrombey, who is supposed to have committed suicide. But P.I. Benoit Blanc suspects foul play when the whole family is not whom they seem to be.
Films are of varied types and evoke various emotions. But ultimately the main aim would be to make a mark in the audience’s mind.
What ‘Knives Out’ beautifully manages to do is engage us. At each and every scene the film constantly engages us with new clues and information and some hilarious dialogues that by the time you have the big reveal and the film ends, you feel fully satisfied. You may predict some things or you just go with the flow. But either way by the time the credits roll you will definitely have a big grin on your face.
I’m a big sucker for the ensemble cast and this film is like my best dream coming true.
All these amazing actors thoroughly entertain us by taking on a variety of roles, each with an agenda or motivation of their own.
Daniel Craig as the detective Benoit Blanc was hilarious and seems like he thoroughly enjoyed his role. Chris Evans was also terrific playing Ransom Drysdale and was wholly different from his usual roles. Thrombey family members played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette were all great with Michael Shannon especially was on another level. Christopher Plummer who plays Harlan Thrombey was great in his few scenes (seeing that he’s dead).
But a surprise performance for me was from Ana de Armas who plays Harlan’s nurse Marta Cabrera.
What can aptly be called her breakthrough role (in spite of being amazing in ‘Blade Runner 2049’) Ana immediately becomes a star courtesy of her beautiful looks and heartfelt portrayal. But since it’s a humongous cast, some actors like Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and even Lakeith Stanfield were sidelined.
One thing I liked very much were the red herrings of the story. The film makes some really good use of unreliable narrators and multiple perspectives to keep us on our toes the whole time.
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Subtls details that we missed will soon become apparent as each layer is uncovered. If mystery was one part of the movie the rest was pure situational comedy (the will reading scene had me in the splits).
Another plus point was the setting, mainly the Thrombey mansion. The house itself was like a big clue board with plenty of set pieces that further accentuated the mystery feel of the film.
The stylish and sleek cinematography makes great use of lights, which I don’t usually notice much. The film was also well edited and I enjoyed how certain scenes were intercut into other scenes (mostly for the humor factor). The background score was also great. And like I said before the writing was excellent with well-written characters who fit in an exciting story.
It’s no wonder that ‘Knives Out’ struck a chord with the viewers with its cool story and electric cast (the bevy of fantabulous sweaters worn by the cast members have a fanbase of its own).
One aspect this film doesn’t disappoint is its re-watchability. Each time you rewatch you will find something new that only makes you enjoy the experience even more.
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So buckle up folks and watch everything with a keen eye, we don’t want to miss something do we?
My Rating:
